


Starbright

by red_river



Series: The Other Guardian [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 08:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a human thing, Cas. A lot of us dream about things that are…out of reach." Sam and Castiel spend a little time watching the stars, and each other. Two-shot, rotating perspective; pre-slash Cas/Sam. Part of the Other Guardian 'verse, but largely standalone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sam

**Author's Note:**

> This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. In brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.
> 
> This story follows "What the Heart Wants," but it's not totally necessary to read that story first.

Sam propped himself up on his elbows, listening to Bobby and Dean bicker over the ancient walkie-talkie that crackled next to his hand. He was stretched out on his back, feeling through his thin shirt the cold, flat stone roof of a smallish building set into the side of a sloping hill. It was some sort of research station, empty for the summer. They hadn't broken into the building itself; they were just borrowing the roof. Sam sighed, feeling the warm breeze tugging at his hair. They were a few miles from the ocean on a deserted stretch of coast between several small cities, and his view of the sea was blocked by a mass of cliffs and redwood trees, but he could feel the salt in the air.

Dean's loud voice had taken on a whiny tone that put Sam's teeth on edge as he espoused his opinion of Bobby's _long, boring—did he mention long!—ritual that didn't have the good grace to end on time._ And Bobby was griping back that he owned both Winchesters and could spend their blood and sweat however he saw fit until Mr. Remington's hotel bill was paid off.

Sam winced a little. He was certain that ninety percent of Bobby's ire was directed at his brother, but the tall hunter also had the sneaking suspicion that was only because he had almost died recently, which was granting him a brief reprieve from all blame. He also planned to capitalize on the opportunity to tell Dean about the rip in upholstery of the back seat from a box cutter he probably shouldn't have been using to cut a hanging thread from the sleeve of his jacket.

Dean's voice screeched against the old radio system, sounding more like feedback than an actual argument, and Sam decided he wasn't really needed for the rest of this conversation, sliding his hand down the volume dial until it clicked off. Antiquated or not, Bobby's equipment still worked, and the tall hunter was left in complete silence, meaning that both his brother and the older hunter could still be a mile away. That was the range of Dean's whining, Sam theorized; once his brother was in range, he would feel the tingling on the back of his neck long before the actual complaints. With any luck, though, he had a few minutes. It sounded like Dean was still up to his elbows in salt.

Bobby hadn't just driven all the way across the country to California to collect his pound of flesh; he had brought a job with him. And Dean had been thrilled with the prospect, right up until he found out there would be no actual hunting, tracking, or killing. Bobby mostly just needed a couple extra hands for painting, waiting, walking, and stargazing.

Sam had never heard of a Celestial Ritual before. Bobby had just given him that look that said _the things you don't know could probably fill an entire state._ And then Dean had pulled the tarp off of the back of Bobby's truck, revealing a polished wooden box that looked suspiciously the size and shape of a coffin. Bobby had cuffed the back of his head, said it shouldn't be exposed to sunlight, and then set Sam to painting a huge symbol across the grass and rocks of the wide open space by the small stone building where they had met up.

The huge symbol had to be precise, and it was intricate like a devil's trap, so Sam had spent most of the day using various ropes, bungee cords, jackets, and odds and ends from the cars to mark out the fifty-foot area mathematically. Oval, oblongular, and other non-symmetrical devil's traps didn't work, Sam had learned from experience, which was why Dean was banned from working on them while drinking. Painting the symbol had taken him nearly five hours of intense concentration on his hands and knees, but he'd gotten the cushy job for tonight.

Sam scooted slightly away from the telescope set up next to him on the roof, stretching his arms over his head and then lying back on his hands. A smile ghosted across his face, and he tipped his head backward, imagining Dean grousing with the forehead light strapped around his head as he tried to cover the entirety of the symbol Sam had painted with salt in the dark, while Bobby anointed the box in the middle with some kind of oil. At some point he was going to have to get a straight answer from the older hunter about what was in there.

Sam's job had been looking through the telescope and reporting via the walkie-talkie the moment Jupiter was at its zenith in the sky. The hardest part had been keeping Dean off of the line long enough to let Bobby know it was time. The only danger had been the possibility of missing the initial moment of the sealing, but Sam felt comfortable enough now to relax, tipping his head back and letting his eyes drift over the breadth of dark sky stretching out in all directions.

He had been to numerous planetariums when he was younger—enough to pick out most of the constellations in the sky above him, to know something about the composition of cold balls of gas packed together in the vacuum of space and held together by the push and pull of the gravity of a thousand other stars. But he had always liked the stories better.

Some of folklore Sam had studied by necessity, some out of boredom and a lack of other reading material at Bobby's house, some under the strict orders of his fathers, and some because Sam was fond of the way people had been explaining things with their hearts long before science came in with the answers. Because before they were lifeless rocks that might have winked out long before their light was visible on the Earth, the stars were the princes that fell from the sky, the heroes immortalized with everlasting life, the dancing will-o'-the-wisps, the souls of loved ones looking down from Heaven. And wishes. Even Sam had grown up on _Starlight, starbright…_

Hundreds of lights twinkled above Sam—thousands, and the tall hunter traced the patterns of light against the dark, finding the North Star and from there the big dipper—the Egyptian _Imperishable Ones_ ,since they never sunk below the horizon. Unsurprisingly Dean didn't know many constellations, but Sam picked out his brother's favorite anyway: Orion, the Hunter. Sam imagined the cussing and grumbling, and let his thumb slide fondly over the plastic speaker. He didn't need to turn it on, though—Dean's crabbiness was something Sam needed no reminder of to call up in excruciating detail.

He let his eyes close for one moment as another gust of wind with the smell of the sea teased the edges of his coat, making his bangs slide into his face, along with a familiar flutter of wings that sounded somehow softer tonight. Sam pushed himself up on his elbows, slowly shaking the bangs out of his face with a smile.

"Cas," he said.

The angel had appeared just a few feet from him, and Sam watched as his trench coat swished slightly in the wind before settling around the angel's form. A strange, warm feeling was blooming in Sam's chest at the sight of the angel framed against the twinkling lights in the sky.

"Hello, Sam." Castiel glanced around slowly in that careful way that he did when he was assessing the area around him, maybe figuring out the exact latitude and longitude of where Sam and his brother were on Earth. Maybe the angels navigated by the stars the way the sailors of old did. It was a silly notion, and one Sam recognized as whimsical and untrue.

Sometimes Castiel asked what they were doing; sometimes Sam volunteered the information as soon as the angel arrived—but tonight Sam found he didn't want to say anything at all, because he didn't want this to be just a check-up. Didn't want Cas to nod at whatever explanation he gave and then turn away. This was somehow related to the sensation squeezing his chest, Sam knew, but he didn't want to analyze it tonight.

"The stars are beautiful out here, away from the city." Sam wasn't even sure what he was saying—just that Castiel's blue eyes were sparkling with the same light of faraway places that Sam couldn't touch, but he wanted to look just a little while longer. Wish, maybe.

_Starlight, starbright..._

Castiel tipped his head up awkwardly, craning his neck backward to scan the sky with the same appraising expression he'd used to study the bare stone rooftop. "There is…something impressive about the illumination of celestial bodies in the absence of artificial light," he agreed.

Sam felt a chuckle rise up through his throat. He smiled at the angel as he leaned back, letting the back of his head rest against the cool roof. "That's no way to look at stars," Sam told the angel softly. He looked up from his sprawl on the ground when Castiel turned to him, and then patted the space next to him, the beat of his fingers hollow on the stone shingles. "They look best from right here."

The way the angel frowned slightly studying the spot made a tide of warmth surge through Sam, a fondness that threatened to bring another laugh bubbling to the surface. Instead he let his hazel eyes fix on piercing blue.

"Do you trust me, Cas?" he asked. Castiel nodded reluctantly, and then stepped toward Sam, lowering himself to the ground slowly and awkwardly, as if he wasn't completely sure what he was doing. The angel's legs were straight and stiff against the rooftop, his knees no doubt locked, and his hands were folded against his chest like a corpse, but he looked obediently up, his black hair falling softly against the stone. Sam couldn't help scooting a few inches closer.

"Sam…" Cas began uncertainly.

"Shh." Sam let his eyes drift back up to the infinite sky with its infinite stars. He lifted a hand to point at the space above them. "You see that really bright star, Cas? The North Star? It's the guide for lost souls on Earth."

Sam snuck a glance over at the angel, seeing the puzzled look on his face. He lowered his hand into the space between them—the space of one telescope. Castiel's face tipped away from the sky to look at him. And Sam knew that he should look back up, but he was suddenly breathless, staring into the bluest eyes that carried more light than any star Sam had ever seen. He wondered if that was because he was an angel or just because he was Castiel. The soft breeze played with the ends of his hair as he lay there with his head turned, inches from the other man.

"They're wishes, Cas," he whispered. "A hundred thousand tiny wishes lighting up the sky." And maybe Sam's wish was up there somewhere too, or maybe it was right here on Earth. Castiel didn't look back up at the stars, and Sam just continued to stare, his heart fluttering in his chest.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there—long enough to imagine the angel's soft fingers twined through his on the beach again, long enough to count the lights reflecting in deep blue eyes, long enough for each heartbeat to feel like it was tingling through his entire soul. Sam thought maybe he would just lie there forever.

"Sam! Saaaaaaaaaam!"

Dean's holler was like the angry bellow of a vengeful spirit, making Sam jerk up on his elbows as his pulse shot up like a bottle rocket.

"Sam—you turned your fucking walkie-talkie off, didn't you? You lazy worm! You better not be sleeping up there!"

Sam's heart was racing for an entirely different reason now as he scrambled to sit up, watching from the corner of his eye as Castiel rose at a much more sedate pace. His hands were shaking slightly as he fiddled with the end of the telescope, struggling to take it apart and stow it as quickly as possible.

"Sam!" The tall hunter couldn't help but flinch again at the sharp, demanding tone, and he cleared his throat, trying to find his voice.

"I…ah…I'll be right down, Dean!" he called over his shoulder. He sent an apologetic look to Castiel, who was standing at his elbow watching him collapse the metal contraption. And now Sam felt heat climbing into his cheeks.

Sam wasn't sure what he had been doing, lying there with his brother's guardian angel, but he was certain he probably hadn't been totally thinking straight at the time. Because Sam had come to terms with the fact that he loved Castiel, but that was supposed to be where it stopped.

A soft hand touched his arm, and Sam jumped nearly a foot.

"Do you need any help?" the angel asked, and the questioning look on the other man's face probably wasn't just because he didn't know what a telescope was. Sam's cheeks were burning hotter now, or maybe that was his heart, or maybe…

"Sammy!" his brother screeched. "People are hungry! Chop chop!"

Sam clutched at the mostly folded telescope, Dean's tirage making him fumble the stand in his hurry. Cas caught the piece of metal before it clattered back to the roof and Sam looked up at him gratefully.

"Maybe, could you just…get me to the ground?" Sam asked, with a half-smile, half-grimace. "As you can tell, Dean's a little…" He didn't finish the sentence, but Castiel nodded, reaching his free hand toward Sam's temple. Sam felt a surge of sudden anticipation as the angel's fingers brushed his forehead, even though it was something they had done many times before.

The familiar rush of wind enveloped him, just as Sam heard his brother screaming for him, and felt Bobby's telescope slipping slightly in his grip—but mostly it was his heart again, reacting to the slight touch from the angel. And Sam realized with sudden clarity that _loving_ Castiel was going to be impossibly easy, but being _in love_ with the angel was going to be very, very hard.


	2. Castiel

Castiel had known the stars long before he had known man. Angels had been created to observe the latter, not the former—but for eons before man existed, there had been little to watch but the stars, and Castiel had walked among them, these fragments of divine fire, light and darkness in their first forms, long before there was anything on Earth to hold his attention. Perhaps that was the reason stars always seemed so strange from a human perspective.

The angel paused at the top of the gently sloping aisle, staring out across the empty black chairs of the college planetarium. The space was all but silent, only the low drone of a recorded male voice echoing under the hollow dome of the high ceiling—and splayed across that ceiling, clusters and galaxies and the vibrant blue of a nebula thick with newborn stars, plumes of color wheeling in turn against the dark. The whole building seemed to tilt with the imitation sky, the false horizon of the auditorium floor rushing up into the field of stars—stars not as man saw them, nor as they appeared to angels, but somewhere in between. Castiel leaned back on his heels to take in the display. It was not human nature to be content, he knew—but all the same he wondered what it was in the human soul that ached for answers so far beyond itself, some glimpse of the universe as man had never been intended to see it, could hardly even begin to understand it. He wondered what human eyes saw when they looked upon this. Then he caught sight of the only occupied chair, near the center of the room, a silhouette stark against the false-color sky, and he started down the ramp again, his footsteps vanishing beneath the low murmur of the voiceover.

Sam was slumped down in his chair, his head lolling against the curve of the padded crown, one foot braced against the back of the seat in front of him. He almost seemed to be asleep, except for his eyes, which, though half-lidded, were fixed without faltering on the dome overhead, his eyelashes just brushing his cheeks as he blinked softly up at the stars. Castiel paused one step behind his chair. There was something unconscious about Sam's sprawl—the tangle of hair trapped at the nape of his neck, his crooked knee suspended between the seats—something that told Castiel Sam was utterly relaxed, at ease in a way the angel had rarely seen him. He found himself reluctant to disturb that. Castiel let a few minutes slip past just watching him, listening to his lazy heartbeat flickering beneath his bones and watching the interplay of celestial colors reflected in his drowsy eyes, before he found the will to break such peaceful contemplation.

"Sam."

He kept his voice gentle, barely audible, but it did not matter; Sam was not expecting him—was never, it seemed, expecting him—and his shoulders jumped, his body shrinking into the chair as he wrenched his head back to see who had discovered him. Castiel watched uncertainty and surprise play in turn across Sam's face; then the young man was all motion, struggling to sit up, his heel colliding with the chair in front of him and setting it rocking on creaking joints. He turned his face up to the angel with one hand gripping the armrest and a halfway sheepish smile.

"Cas. Hey. I didn't hear you, um…" Sam made a sort of flapping motion with his free hand, but he broke off when Castiel narrowed his eyes, unable to decipher the gesture. Sam slid his hand into his hair instead, forking the tousled strands out of his face. "Just checking in?" he asked—but somehow Castiel thought he heard a different question hovering underneath it, something to do with the teeth embedded in his bottom lip, the expression of hope or anticipation on his shadowed face. It was an expression Sam wore sometimes, these days, when he looked at Castiel—an expression the angel found infinitely intriguing, though he did not even know where to begin deciphering it. Though it was an altogether too human thing, a change in perception based on the behavior of another, Castiel suddenly found he did not want to simply be dropping in, obeying the rhythm of angels. He wanted to have come for Sam. He studied the young man's face for a long moment, the glitter of galaxies in his waiting eyes, before he looked back up at the dome.

"You are still watching the stars," he said.

For an instant Sam's brow furrowed, confusion displacing that subtle, strange expression—but as quickly as it had come, the puzzlement cleared, and Sam leaned back in his seat, nodding against the dark cushion. "Right—you mean, from when you came down a week ago…total coincidence, actually. We're on a different case. We heard about some disturbances during the planetarium shows—funky lights, speakers buzzing, that kind of thing…" Sam glanced up at Castiel and trailed off with a heavy exhale, half chuckle and half sigh. "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Sounds more like a job for tech support than any gnarly spirits. But Dean's feeling restless, so…we're scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one."

Castiel did not know what tech support was. He was familiar enough with barrels that he did not need the phrase explained. Above all, though, he recognized the young man's tone—distantly fond, lightly exasperated, as it so often was when he spoke of his brother. The angel turned away, his eyes sweeping across the dark expanse of empty chairs in search of another silhouette. "Should Dean not…scrape this barrel himself?" he asked, wondering if he had used the phrase wrong when his words pulled a soft laugh from Sam's lips.

"He's doing his part. He's spending the day stalking the campus in search of witnesses. I decided to hang out here instead, watch for any weird phenomena. I keep expecting campus security to call and tell me he got locked up for shaking down some terrified astronomy major…" Castiel felt his eyebrows draw together, and for some reason that made Sam laugh again, harder this time, and pull himself straight in his chair. "Never mind, Cas. Do you, um…you want to sit down?"

Castiel considered the chair to Sam's left, one deeper into the row; and because that was where he wished to be, a moment later he was, the padded seat creaking under his form. Sam whipped his head around to follow him—but Castiel wasn't sure which one of them was more surprised when he attempted to lean back like Sam and the chair plummeted backward, yanking him almost horizontal. Castiel jerked and seized the armrest, and Sam reached out for him in turn, fisting a startled hand in the shoulder of his trench coat. When a few seconds passed with no further descent, Sam relaxed his grip; but he didn't pull away, and Castiel forgot his hold on the armrest as Sam's touch drew his attention instead, the warm line of each finger pressed over the ridge of his collarbone.

"Sorry," Sam managed through a breathless laugh. "It's a pretty old theater…they lean back a little far. You okay?"

Castiel turned his head, regarding the shape of Sam's silhouette against the glory of the false sky. "Because they look best from right here," he repeated haltingly, stumbling over the construction.

He had not known what that meant when Sam first said it, on the stone roof of the small observatory twelve miles off Cabrillo Highway in Central California—had assumed he was probably mistaken, that there were other places on Earth with a better view of the stars. But he had reconsidered when he was lying next to Sam, the flicker of the wind teasing the shoulders of their jackets together, spinning Sam's hair out across the shale tiles like a disheveled halo. Some part of him still doubted that the geographical element was at its peak. But he had begun to think that was not what Sam meant at all. Perhaps he had meant the position, lying next to someone. Perhaps he had meant they looked best lying next to Sam.

Sam's eyes widened at his words—then he ducked his head, his long bangs swinging forward to hide his eyes. "Yeah," he murmured to the darkened theater. Castiel studied him carefully, worried he had said something wrong. But in the tenths of a second before Sam slid back into his own chair, as he retracted his hand from Castiel's shoulder, the angel caught a hint of a curve playing across his companion's lips, and decided that whatever he had done, it had not been wrong. Sam slumped back and turned his face to the ceiling, and for a long moment the theater was silent except for the soft creaking of Sam's chair and the low voice of the recorded narrator, offering human stories about the stars.

Castiel looked up, too. The dome was lit up with green and saffron light, the unsteady threads of what the voice called the Serenity Nebula rippling against an ocean of galaxies as distant as stars. The angel folded his hands in his lap, remembering without thought the names of each galaxy in turn, and each star within them. Sam shifted and Castiel shifted with him, turning his head to watch Sam watching the sky, his lips gently parted in awe or longing. He could not always tell them apart.

"Is this what it really looks like, Cas?"

Castiel frowned. He tipped his head back once more to take in the stars, the weights and ballasts holding a universe in balance—anchor points, counterpoints. He narrowed his eyes at the vision on the ceiling.

"No," he said. Then he looked over at Sam, and something in the young man's expression compelled him to add, "Not to me. But the nature of their reality is fluid, depending on one's perspective."

Sam was smiling again. He made no answer, but he turned his body toward Castiel and curled into the seat, his temple pressed to the swell of the seatback and his eyes locked on the dome. Castiel watched his eyelashes dance and quiver against his cheeks. He could feel the heart beating in Sam—a heat, a vibration in the space that separated them—and he realized that he had felt it on the roof as well, the air throbbing in between them as Sam's bright eyes stared into his. Castiel lifted his gaze back to the dome and heard again what Sam had whispered into the wind, each word pronounced so carefully, as if they were infinitely fragile, unfamiliar, their effect uncertain—rapturous words that Castiel did not quite understand. He leaned back in the chair and focused his eyes on one star in particular, lying forgotten along the false horizon of the planetarium floor.

"They are wishes," he said.

He could sense Sam's gaze darting to his face, the companion body shifting as close as the chairs allowed. "What?" he asked.

Castiel frowned slightly. "The stars. You told me they are wishes." He was not certain he knew what that meant, but he had thought Sam did.

Sam breathed out slowly. "Oh. Right. Well, that was…I mean, the real stars," he said, waving careless fingers toward the cluster on the ceiling. "No one wishes on these ones."

"Why?" Castiel asked. He knew at once that it was a question no human would have asked, from the startled little laugh that broke from Sam's lips.

"Uh…I don't know." Sam shrugged against the seat and raked one hand through his hair, sending a few strands down into his considering eyes. "They're just…different. These are just pictures. The real ones are…so far away, I guess. So far beyond us."

"Why would that make them more suitable for wishing?" Castiel asked, his brows drawn together in puzzlement—but Sam only shook his head, his mouth quirking up at one corner.

"It's just a human thing, Cas. A lot of us dream about things that are…out of reach." Then Sam's eyes found his, and all at once the vibration between them was overwhelming, a symphony of tension and space and the song of Sam's heart beating, just a little faster than before. Sam's lips parted on a breath and Castiel felt himself doing the same, breathing in tandem with this strange and beautiful creature, a man who wished on stars he had walked between. Castiel leaned forward in his seat, searching for the reflection of the infinite universe in bright hazel eyes.

"What do you dream about, Sam?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Sam sucked in a breath. Then he ducked his head, and the fall of his dark hair slid in between them, hiding whatever expression he did not want the angel to see. Perhaps his question was one not permitted to ask. Castiel watched Sam for a long moment, the precarious stillness of the figure beside him, before his eyes lifted again to the stars—stars he knew far better than he knew this, whatever this was. Promixity. Touch. Castiel glanced back at his companion.

So little of this, of Sam, was within his comprehension. The only thing he was certain of—after the beach, and the roof, with the stars thrown up over their heads—was that there was something about Sam that made him feel warm. Warmth in itself was difficult to understand; cold was more natural to angels, as to the deep reaches of space where the stars were lit. But Sam was warm, and in his presence that warmth was in Castiel, too, striking a fire where there had only ever before been light. Castiel did not know what that meant. But whatever that sensation was, he was drawn to it, drawn to Sam, and he had no desire to extinguish that feeling.

Castiel hesitated for a tenth of a second. Then he lifted one hand and slipped two fingers beneath the curtain of Sam's hair, and pushed it softly back behind his ear, feeling the silk of each strand playing in turn across his fingertips. The eyes he revealed were wide, locked on his face, but Castiel did not abandon his task; he took his time catching every strand, and then brushing their uneven ends down against Sam's neck with the pad of his thumb. Then he lowered his gaze to meet Sam's once more, as his hand fell away into his lap, his fingers throbbing with the prickle of warmth on his borrowed skin.

"Perhaps the stars are not as distant as you think," he said.

How much farther could they be, he wondered, than human warmth on an angel's fingertips?

Sam took a sharp breath. Then his lips quirked up in a smile, and he tipped his head to the side, his fingers tracing the shell of his ear in the same path Castiel's had followed. "Is that a line, Cas?" he asked under his breath—but at the confusion on the angel's face, he laughed again, waving the question away. "Never mind, man, sorry. I just…I've been sitting here for three hours watching the stars spin. I think I need a break." The hair was already trapped behind his ears, but Sam made a motion as if to tuck it back all the same as he sat up in his chair, one hand lingering at the back of his neck. "You want to come with me to get something to eat? It's not going to be special…I mean, Dean won't be there—"

"Yes," Castiel told him. Because he rarely understood the meaning behind the underneath thread of Sam's questions, the question he was really asking, but even he was beginning to recognize the signs of Sam talking himself around in circles.

Sam was an enigma, an unknown quantity in a universe he had comprehended since the stars ignited. Castiel did not yet understand the gravity between them. But as Sam rocked up out of his chair and pushed to his feet, and then stood looking down at him, backlit against limitless pinpricks of light with that same aching expression on his face, Castiel decided that perhaps this was the way the stars were intended to be seen after all. There was an unparalleled beauty to the human perspective, from time to time.

"C'mon," Sam urged, palm up as he reached out with a crooked smile on his face, as he had in the moment of their first meeting. "Let's go see if we can wrestle up a sandwich or something."

Castiel was only too happy to take his hand.


End file.
